Hi Minlyn, provocative post! I think you’ve jumped into a controversial debate with care and sensitivity to the volatility of the topic; you ask good questions, and there is a lot here to unpack. But I would like to push back against the idea that “racism isn’t one-sided” briefly.
According to the FBI’s most recent study of violence against law enforcement (which you can find here: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/officers-feloniously-killed), of the 59 alleged offenders in “felonious” officer deaths, “42 of the alleged offenders were white, 13 were black, 2 were American Indian/Alaska Native, 1 was Asian/Pacific Islander, and race was not reported for 1 offender.” However, despite white people killing more than three times as many police officers as African Americans, those same African Americans are more than three times as likely to be killed by police. Similarly, according to analysis conducted by WNYC, African Americans are “significantly more likely than white defendants to be additionally charged with resisting arrest” in most instances of street arrests (more here: http://www.wnyc.org/story/resisting-arrest-black-white/). While these statistics might suggest that racism may be more “one-sided” than an equilibrium, they are a slice of insight that supports your conclusion that “racism isn’t as simple as the majority hating the minority.”
When we look at the outcomes produced by such a system of law enforcement, racial intent or hatred takes a back seat to the overall effects of the system. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology explains its definition of this sort of systemic or institutional oppression thus:
“Relationships between groups and relationships between groups and social categories, should not be confused with the oppressive behaviour of individuals. A white man may not himself actively participate in oppressive behaviour directed at blacks or women, for example, but he nonetheless benefits from the general oppression of black and women simply because he is a white man. In this sense, all members of dominant and subordinate categories participate in social oppression regardless of their individual attitudes or behaviour. Social oppression becomes institutionalized when its enforcement is so of social life that it is not easily identified as oppression and does not require conscious prejudice or overt acts of discrimination.”
I might tend to agree with your sentiment that “Unfortunately, blaming the system for everything isn’t going to do anything,” but think there are steps that might be taken to help bend the system toward more just outcomes (not unlike Alyssa’s example of the blind auditions for the symphony: http://alyssat.talons43.ca/2016/03/07/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-discrimination/)
Not to say that I have any idea what those steps might be… but food for thought nonetheless!
Enjoy your evening, and where this thinking takes you,
Mr. J
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